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I bought this from Guitar Center in Hammond, Indiana. It had been sitting there for some time, so I made an offer of $1000. It showed up with a very nice case & all USA electronics. I suspect the bridge is also not the stock bridge, but a recent American Original or reissue bridge, because the holes in the bottom of the block are shallow
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Unusual ash (sen) body:
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Electronics. I will redo this completely:
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Typical mid-late '60s contours, very different from the deep contours found on the 50s & early 60s bodies:
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Seems to be a '67 or 68 re-issiue. Nice score!
Pretty sure it's a 67. All the 68s I saw had the "F" stamped tuners, & most of those also had two string trees. Also note the stamp in the neck pocket:
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The specs are all over the place. For instance, in addition to the atypical (for the era) ash body, the screw pattern for the pickguard is like a 59-62. The dots have the narrow spacing at the 12th fret, but they are 1/4" dia. instead of the later 9/32".
I wouldn't sweat the small details like that.
How does it sound?
Like a Strat
Lol
It sounds great. The pickups are some sort of Custom Shop offering, having the Gavitt wire & foil CS sticker on the back. I should have thrown a meter on them while I had it all apart, but at the time I was thinking I would be ditching them for a set of Custom 54s. But after I strung it up w/a set of 10-46 strings & played it awhile, I'll probably end up keeping the pickups.
It sounds very nice played clean through my Princeton. Just how I like it: clear, bell-like tones in all positions. In fact, I have not played the 2 & 4 positions on any of my Strats as much as I have lately on this Strat. It's a fun guitar, & the look of the big headstock is a change of pace. It's also a decent weight, I'm guessing about 7.5 lbs
The only complaint I have is the super thin neck. I knew going into the purchase that it was like that; Fender Japan makes their necks significantly thinner than any USA counterpart.
If I'm reading the pot codes correctly = which I may not be, those are from middle of 1996 (?)
Chuck
That's possible. All the electronics have been swapped out. At some point I will install all CTS pots along with a Centralab 5-way switch